‘Connected’ by Becky Chilcott and Sarah Chilcott
“Growing up with a Mum who is constantly knitting, I developed an aversion to having a go myself early on. When you’re a teenager who likes their sleep, it’s not the best sound to wake up to at 7.30am every Saturday morning… she doesn’t use quiet knitting needles as you’d imagine but a knitting machine that is around 1 metre long and is blooming noisy (although I was always attired in custom knits that were often made on demand).”
‘Sexy’ by Mind Design
Holger Jacobs runs Mind Design with Stewart Walker. Jacobs explains that “We Londoners are usually considered a bit stiff and there is a famous saying: ‘No sex please – we are British’.
“However, we were interested in the swinging 60s when London became sexy. Our typographic treatment of the word is inspired by the soft, psychedelic, lava lamp-like lettering seen during the hippie era. Like a big hugging blow up cushion.”
‘Cultural’ by Jessica Jacob
“Food is culture, and London is one of the capitals of the world, with a huge mix of people coming from every corner of the earth.”
#LDF13 ‘Expressive’ by Ruth Rowland
Ruth Rowland is a lettering artist who specialises in calligraphy, expressive typography and hand drawn ink on paper. We are delighted that she’ll be joining us for the drop in workshops at the V&A. Rowland explains her approach to her word ‘Expressive’…
Multitudinal by Hedy Parry-Davies
Parry-Davies’ piece for Type Tasting explores the ways we experience the River Thames through a combination of the maps we use to navigate our way around the city—via the Underground, cycling, walking and driving. The different maps show the overview of the city both present and past, and also link us to the personal experience of existing within it. “Maps express a wide range and detail of information efficiently and in a form which I find beautiful. My tessellated origami enabled me to inter-weave all these elements to create an artwork.”
#LDF13 ‘Exotic’ by Lizzie Hobbs
Hobbs has designed the word ‘Exotic’ “to reflect some of the cultures which are thriving in London. Each letter has been designed to reflect the script from these cultural languages and then filled in with patterns—Islamic, Middle Eastern and South Asian. The piece has been drawn freehand. ‘E’, ‘O’ and ‘I’ reflect Persian, Urdu and Arabic. ‘X’, ‘T’ and ‘C’ reflect Bengali, Tamil and Hindi.”
Blog: Typographic explosion
The Type Tasting studio is full of creative typography as we begin to photograph, select and curate the final display for Type Tasting with the London Design Festival. It’s an exciting collection in such a range of styles and mediums, what connects all the pieces is the amount of thought and hands on creativity that’s gone into them.
#LDF13 ‘Disenchanted’ by Siro Carraro
Artist Siro Carraro grew up in Italy, studied art in London and works from his sunny North London studio which is an Aladdin’s Cave of large canvasses and colour. He describes himself as “A creator of dreams and a collector of images, that run freely from my mind in and out of my canvases.”
#LDF13 ‘Ornithological’ by Claire Scully
Scully’s meticulously hand drawn feathers display the level of intricate detail to be found in much her work including her typeface designs. ‘Ornithological’ was drawn late into the night after returning from a trip to the US to avoid dealing with jetlag.
The inspiration for Scully’s self initiated work often comes from my everyday surroundings of the metropolis and its relationship with the natural world. “I love 50’s, 60’s and 70’s architecture particularly tower blocks with their form and location, this is where I also find the connection to nature and natural patterns in the environment of interest.”
#LDF13 ‘Productive’ by Pat Randle of Nomad Letterpress
Letterpress printer Randle has chosen Caslon* to represent London, using 96-point Caslon Italic showing swash alternatives drawn by an Americam designer called T. M. Cleland in the 1930’s for (ATF) American Type Foundries. The CT ligature is printed from a laser cut letter.
Type Tasting Blog 